


the sound of summer

by postalcoast



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26135482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postalcoast/pseuds/postalcoast
Summary: Sean likes Lenny. It takes him a while to figure out how much so.
Relationships: Sean MacGuire/Leonard "Lenny" Summers
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	the sound of summer

There’s a lot of things Lenny and Sean talk about.

Their past lives - before joining the gang, their present lives - after joining the gang.

They’ve talked about hate, about love, about the many friends they’ve come to know since meeting Dutch and Hosea.

Lenny tells Sean about Jenny, about being on the run at the age of 15, about his father’s pocket watch he lost back in Blackwater along with the love of his life. Lenny tells Sean that he guesses they all lost a lot of things back in Blackwater.

Sean tells Lenny about the pocket watch of Dutch’s that had caught his eye when he’d first met him and Hosea, about him attempting to rob the pair and the two of them outsmarting him and taking the bullets out of his gun while he wasn’t looking. Sean laughs at the irony there, almost bitterly, about how seemingly both of their stories started with a pocket watch.

Some days, they talk more than others. Some days, they talk until the moon is high in the sky and everyone in camp has retired to their tents. Some days, it’s just a few words in passing - a simple, friendly smile in each other’s direction, a pat on the arm.

Sometimes, Sean thinks, he could listen to Lenny talk forever. He’s very bright, undoubtedly - one of the smartest people Sean has ever known. He has a way of talking that makes you really _think,_ he makes some of the most complicated ideas sound like they’re about as straightforward as the weather or the time of day.

Sean likes Lenny. It takes him a while to figure out how much so.

Lenny tries teaching him how to read, despite Sean’s willingness to give up. He has all the patience in the world, it seems, and he’s about as stubborn as it comes. 

Sean likes that about Lenny. He likes that Lenny isn’t willing to give up on him, that he’s persistent - it’s only a few of the many fine qualities he possesses. 

Sometimes, around the fire at Horseshoe Overlook, or sitting at one of the tables littered with knife marks and remanents of dried up blood from a previous game of five-finger fillet - Lenny will read to Sean, instead. 

Sean will sometimes lean his head back up against the log behind him, stretched out on the ground in front of the dying fire with Lenny sitting on the log next to him. He’ll stare up at the sky, at the stars, and just listen to Lenny’s voice.

Other times he’ll watch Lenny as he reads, watch his eyes as they scan the page, glance down at his lips and let his gaze linger there.

Maybe Sean was right all along, and that reading would just put funny ideas in his head. Funny ideas such as what it’d be like if he were to just pull the book out of Lenny’s hands and lean forward and kiss him. 

Sometimes, Lenny will glance up at him over the book - just to make sure he’s still paying attention, and Sean thinks that maybe these ideas aren’t so funny after all. 

***

One night, similar to the many nights they spend together at Horseshoe, Sean sits with Lenny around the campfire, the only one up and stirring about besides them is Uncle, somewhere over near the treeline.

“You’re a great man, Lenny,” Sean says, out of the blue. He keeps his gaze forward, focused on the fire as if somehow by staring at it, the last embers will spark back to life. He feels Lenny looking at him, he feels him smiling, and it makes Sean smile.

“Not _great,_ ” He hears Lenny say. “just _normal_ \- I guess.”

“But you’re _good_ ,” Sean lets himself glance over at Lenny, and he ignores how sincere his voice sounds - he can’t remember a time when it’s sounded like this. “never met a fella as good as you.”

Lenny opens his mouth, leaves it hanging ajar there in an open smile for a couple of seconds, and shakes his head like he’s about to disagree. 

“ _Kind-hearted_ , I don’t know -” Sean rushes the words out, and for the first time in a long time - he feels a bit flustered. “too goddamn bright and nice to be robbin’ banks for the rest of your life like the rest of us sorry bastards.”

“Well, what kind of life would _you_ rather have? If you could lead any life or do anything - what would it be?”

“I’d end up like me da, I guess,” Sean shrugs, looks back to the fire, or what’s left of it. “Don’t know how to do much else.”

"Is that what you _want_ to do?"

"I guess, I dont know."

When Lenny doesn’t reply, Sean glances back over at him. They’re sitting close enough that Sean can reach over and nudge him, and he does.

“What about you, then?” Sean asks him.

Lenny thinks about it for a second, gazing out into the fire, leaned forward with his hands clasped together at his knees. “I’d like to be a lawyer, or at least that’s what my pa wanted me to be.”

“Maybe our paths could cross again someday, then, yeah?” Sean chuckles. “No doubt I’d need a good lawyer sometime in the future.”

Lenny looks at him again, and the look in his eyes is something similar to the way Sean heard his own voice sound only a few moments ago. Warm, sincere. “Who says our paths would ever _uncross_?”

Sean’s lived enough to know that good things rarely ever last, but if anything - he wishes, or he hopes - that _this,_ these late-night talks with Lenny and hell, even the meaningless passing glances they share, would last forever. And then some.

***

“I love ya, y’know,” Sean says to him one day while he’s on guard duty, and Lenny’s sitting back against a nearby tree, reading, keeping him company.

Lenny snorts. “It’s gonna take a little more than a love confession to make me forget about teaching you how to read.”

“No, I mean it,” Sean glances over at him just in time to see Lenny’s expression transform. Mere amusement to surprised, eyebrows lifting up high on his forehead.

Lenny doesn’t say anything right away. Sean lets the silence between them settle, diverts his gaze to staring back out at the trees. 

“Well, uh - _thanks_ , I guess,” He hears Lenny say, and he hears the smile in his voice. “I love you too.”

***

It’s Lenny who kisses him first, one night at Clemens Point, while the cicadas are buzzing.

Sean can’t remember what he’d said to make Lenny kiss him, but he can’t remember much of anything right now. 

He and Lenny had stayed up talking again, the two of them sprawled out on the ground in front of the fire again. It’s probably too muggy and humid to have a fire going, but they lit one up anyway, probably just a force of habit.

Sean had his head laid in Lenny’s lap, Lenny’s fingers running absentmindedly through Sean’s hair while Sean’s own hands laid content and calm on his chest. Another habit they’d formed, although Sean isn’t entirely sure when. 

Lenny had leaned down and kissed him, simple as that. Short and gentle and soft before pulling away to regard Sean’s reaction.

And it’s Sean who kisses him that second time, boosting himself up the rest of the way on his elbows and Lenny meeting him halfway. 

It’s nice. The soft, fluttery kisses he shares with Lenny.

It’s another thing that Sean could easily consider doing for the rest of his life.


End file.
